big ring. She’d always wanted a big diamond, even if she knew she was supposed to say it didn’t matter.
And the thing that bugged her, the thing that really drove her crazy, was that Doug had never asked her. If he had, he would have known. She suspected that he surprised her with this one so he wouldn’t have to spend a lot of money, which was even more annoying, because he made a good amount of money—a lot of money by anyone’s standards. It wasn’t like she could look at the ring and think, Well, this is all he could afford, but I know he loves me. It wasn’t. He could have bought her something spectacular, but he decided to be practical. And who wanted practical for an engagement ring?
They were engaged for four months. Claire tried to remember where the shift happened, when things started to fall apart, but she could never quite figure it out. There were no screaming fights, no cheating, no admission of an Internet porn addiction or a hidden drug problem. They just simply began to crack.
Almost every conversation they had led them to a disagreement. Had it always been this way? Claire didn’t think so, but maybe it had and they’d just never noticed. Maybe now that they were facing the rest of their lives together, everything seemed bigger and more important.
“You only want two kids?” Claire said one day. Doug nodded. He’d said this before, but she’d always thought he was flexible.
“Two is a good number,” he said. “Two is affordable.”
“What if one of them dies?” Claire asked. “Then you only have one left.”
“Why would you say something like that?” He looked away. “What’s wrong with you?”
When Claire wanted to go out to dinner three nights in a row, Doug said they shouldn’t, to save money. When Doug talked about moving to Long Island, Claire told him he was out of his mind. When Claire watched reality TV, especially the singing competition show that Doug hated, he told her she was contributing to the downfall of American culture. When Doug wore his BlackBerry strapped to his hip in a holster, Claire told him he was a nerd. It went on like this, until most nights were spent in separate rooms of the apartment, watching different TV shows.
“You’re always so mad at me,” Doug said, more than once. “It’s like whatever I do disappoints you.”
“That’s not true,” Claire said. But she wasn’t sure.
Then one night, after an argument about whether they should order Thai food or sushi that ended with Doug calling Claire overdramatic and Claire calling Doug controlling, he had sighed. “What’s going on with us?”
“It’s just Thai food,” Claire said. But it was too late.
“Something’s wrong. This isn’t right.”
“You can get the crab wontons,” she said. Doug shook his head.
Claire stayed in the apartment and Doug moved out, saying that he would pay his part of the rent for two more months while she looked for a new place. It all happened quickly. There were two nights of talking and fighting, of Claire crying on the couch, and Doug crying a little bit too, and then it was settled and he was moving out and Claire still hadn’t told anyone what had happened.
The Monday after Doug left, Claire got dressed, took the subway to work, and was standing in her boss’s office talking about a grant proposal when she started crying. Crying! Like she was seven years old. It had been mortifying to stand there and try to hold back her tears, and even more so to have her boss jump up and close the door to her office, then guide Claire to a chair to ask her what was wrong.
Claire had told her everything—the engagement, Doug’s moving out, the apartment, how she still needed to tell her family and cancel the plans that had been made for the wedding—and Amy had listened, nodding and handing her tissues, making sympathetic noises at certain places.
“It’s such a mess,” Claire said. “I’m sorry. It’s a mess, I’m a mess.”
Amy had sent her home then, instructing her to take the week off. “You have so much comp time. Take it. We’re covered here. There’s nothing that can’t be done next week. Just get things sorted and settled.” Claire thought how strange this was, since the extent of her personal conversations with Amy up to this point had been about the salad place across the street that they both liked. When they ran into each